This is amazing! - 95%

First off, let me be completely honest about this. I'm not the biggest fan of black metal, but I do enjoy some black metal acts, this being one of them. I had found out about this album, and band not too long ago, and I was surprised by them. I was even more surprised to learn that these guys are actually a Christian group (which seems like it would be awkward considering this band is from Norway). Even If you are against religion and Christianity for whatever reason, you should give the album a listen, you'd be surprised.

The guitar work here is excellent. The riffing though out the album is great, and rather memorable at that, and it's all very precise at that. The way the riffs are written really adds to the overall mood and tone of the album as well. Then you have the lead guitar parts and the soloing, which are even more precise than the dark riffs you'll find used. What makes this all even better? All the guitar parts for each song actually sound unique, and it makes listening to the album interesting. As for the bass, it mostly follows the guitars (from what I can hear).

The drumming here is outstanding, and just like the guitar riffs, are very precise and tight. I though it was pretty funny that Hellhammer from Mayhem was the person behind the kit for this record, and fairly ironic too! He does a pretty nice job, keeping some nice variation going on during the songs, so it doesn't sound like a constant plethora of blast beats constantly (not that there's anything wrong with that). My only gripe with the drumming is that when he does use blast beats, it sounds like he occasionally gets off time by just a hair, but then he hits his timing dead on the money afterwards, so it'a all good.

On top of all this awesome musicianship going on, there's the awesome vocals. The vocalist uses a high pitched scream most of the time, with occasionally using some lower pitched screams, but that's fairly rare. I find his vocals to add to the overall feeling of this album and it's meaning as well, and he picked an awesome style to do this with. The lyrics behind the vocals are about dark subjects, told from a more Christian standpoint. For example: In Betrayed, it deals with a person thinking about suicide, and all the thoughts that come along with it.

Also, along with all of the great guitar and bass work, there is also many orchestral moments scattered though the album, and two instrumental tracks where the orchestra is featured, and used greatly to add to the mood. Overall, the record is nearly flawless, with only a few issues, but they're not huge glaring issues. The production is great, and all the music that lies in the album is fantastic.